The Who's Pete Townshend says playing live still excites him

The Who's Pete Townshend says performing has become more meaningful to him in the twilight of his career – despite previously saying 'it's a load of crap'

The Who's Pete Townshend says he felt so "excited" that he couldn't sleep following recent shows in Europe and Mexico.

The guitarist has previously voiced his dislike of performing live, saying that touring "means nothing" to him and is "a load of crap."

But as he nears "the end" of his music career, Townshend says performing to younger crowds has given him a new lease of life.

He tells Rolling Stone: "For me, the last five weeks of the tour we did, before we came to California to do Desert Trip, everything felt very different. I'm notorious for being, I suppose the word is blasé, but also a bit diffident about performing.

"We'll do a good show and afterwards, people will say, 'Were you having fun?' And I'll say, 'No, not really.' They'll say, 'Isn't it great?' And I'll say, 'Well, glad you think so but it's just what I do.' That kind of thing.

"I'm a little bit detached and I put it down to the way that I grew up. My dad was in a band, and I grew up on the road with my dad, and I feel safe on the road. I don't get nervous on the road. I get a little bored on the road. I don't have a lot of hose kind of starry buzzes that a lot of people get when they perform.

"Well, this last couple of months, maybe it's because I can see the end in the distant misty future or maybe it's something else, I started to feel like what I'm doing is of greater consequence. It means more to me, anyway."

Townshend continues: "In Germany and Italy, and Bologna specifically, at least 65% of the audience were under 30. Now, when we went to Coachella, we were also playing to an audience that was about 50/50 millennials on the one hand – fuck knows why they were there but they were there, and I'm not gonna try and explain it – and people of our age and younger.

"But in the middle, we played in Mexico, and the audience was very young, but they knew the words of every song and they sang them the whole way through.

"And on both nights, when I went to bed, I couldn't sleep. I was tired, but I couldn't sleep, and I think it was because the little artist inside me was excited. I feel I'm still riding on a bit of that now."